A VIOLENT YET FLAMMABLE WORLD
Title: A Violent Yet Flammable World
Written By: corposant
Timeline: season 4-ish
Rating: PG-13
Summary:"It’s the middle of a remarkably sweltering August when Justin and Brian break up for the fifth time."
Author's Notes: And because Justin and Michael needs to get high together. Don't take this too seriously. Thank you besame_bj for being a wonderful beta. Also inspired by a song, by the same name, from Au Revoir Simone. And if you like indie synth pop, you can also hear it here.
Inspired By Icon:
It’s the middle of a remarkably sweltering August when Justin and Brian break up for the fifth time. It results from a mature discussion that went something like this:
“Fuck you, I’m leaving!” Justin yells across the loft, throwing his arms in the air.
“Great, fuck you too! Get out!” Brain screams back, throwing open the door.
(Upon retrospection, it’s really one of his lamest comebacks.)
This is followed by something roughly resembling a nuclear fall out. Because as soon as Justin steps out the door, the past four years (or one year, depending on who you are talking to)
together miraculously cease to exist. Brian decides to go back to being the biggest jerk on the East Coast and Justin starts to pretend that his world did not revolve around Brian.
So, Justin stops going to the loft and stops bringing Brian his orders at the diner. Brian stops leaving Justin terse voicemail on how the whole point of having a cell phone is so that Justin’s ass can be at his beck and call. Brian even stops coming home at 3 AM (well, actually it only happens once or twice; Brian only wants to see what it’s like). And they ignore (eye fuck) each other in the backroom of Babylon when they think no one is looking.
- - -
The third time Brian and Justin arrive at the diner separately, Debbie is vaguely worried. But the third time Brian and Justin refuse to sit in the same booth, Jennifer starts to panic. Well, maybe just a little.
“So,” Jennifer starts uncomfortably after the fourth time, “You’re really broken up this time?” Justin nods resolutely, looking everywhere but his mother’s eyes.
Somewhere, on the other side of the diner, Debbie whacks Brian across the head and roars, “Fix this, you asshole!”
- - -
Michael suddenly sees more of Brian in a week than he has in the past two months combined.
Ted is one step closer to a severe myocardial infarction with every extra hour Brian puts in at Kinnetik.
Melanie is pissed off because out of the blue, Brian decides to be an attentive father.
Lindsay stops calling because Brian keeps hanging up on her whenever she talks about the gallery.
Emmett notices that all the hot new tricks in town have been somehow less available as of late.
By the end of the second week, Ben officially labels it as the greatest separation since the dissolution of the USSR.
- - -
Daphne’s apartment doesn’t have air conditioning. By the end of August, the weather only gets hotter.
For two weeks, Justin sits in the middle of Daphne’s ratty couch, sweating buckets and absurdly bored.
The air in Daphne’s small two-bedroom apartment is slow and heavy, like the musty air of a bathhouse.
Which is a dreadful thing. Because whenever Justin thinks about bathhouses, Justin thinks about Brian. Which is a severe understatement. Because whenever Justin thinks, he is thinking about Brian.
So for two weeks, Justin sits, sweating, in the middle of Daphne’s ratty couch, a little turned on, and pines for Brian. Until finally, Daphne snaps.
“You are making me sick!” she practically screams. She is flapping her arms in the air like some kind of bird, Justin thinks dully. “You’re officially pathetic! Go to Babylon! Fuck someone! For the love of cocks, please just let me have a few hours to myself!”
With that she shoves Justin out the door.
As Justin makes his way down the stairs from the humid apartment into the even more humid night air, he recalls fondly the climate controlled loft. He quickly leaves himself a mental note to never again break up with Brian in the middle of the summer. Really, his hair can’t deal with all this fucking moisture.
- - -
In the morning, Justin wakes in someone else’s shabby apartment and regrets another night wasted on someone less than decent in bed. As he pulls on his t-shirt, Justin mourns the state of his lackluster (sex) life.
- - -
Michael is annoyed. Brian is his best friend and all. He obviously loves him and is truly sorry that he and Justin broke up (yet again), but damn it, enough is enough. Michael is putting his foot down.
“Brian, I’m not going to Babylon tonight,” Michael says firmly. “And you can’t have dinner with me and Ben and Hunter anymore.” There, the foot is down.
Brian raises an eyebrow.
“I mean, you are always welcomed on Fridays and some weekends,” Michael quickly amends. “And other occasional weekdays.”
Ben looks at him sympathetically with an unrecognizable vegetarian concoction in hand. “I’m really sorry about Justin,” Ben tells him.
Brian glares back. He wouldn’t even force feed Theodore Ben’s cooking. Did they actually think he wanted to stay for dinner? And, for the nth time, what they had is an unconventional, undefined relationship (and he uses that word loosely) and it’s not a break up because you don’t break up from an unconventional, undefined relationship. Honestly.
There’s a grunt from the other side of the apartment.
“I’m not sorry,” Hunter cuts in enthusiastically.
“However, I am always free for nights out at Babylon. Among other things,” he adds and winks flirtatiously.
Brian sighs sorrowfully and heads for the door. Everyone’s useless.
- - -
By mid-September, Justin decides that he rather enjoys being single.
He stays out as late as the mood strikes him and even keeps as many phone numbers as he wants. On weekends, he drink himself into oblivion and back without anyone to answer to. Yep. This is the life.
- - -
The trouble really starts when Ted hunts Justin down one morning at the diner. It’s just early October and it’s still warm outside. Which is why it is strange that Ted shows up in a long black coat and sunglasses and a red baseball hat. Justin wonders if Brian finally drove him mad.
“You’ve got to talk to him,” Ted whispers feverishly as soon as he sees Justin.
“Who?”
“Brian! Who else?”
“Why do I want to talk to Brian? And what are you wearing?”
Ted immediately lowers his baseball hat. “I have SARS and can’t go to work because I’m highly contagious,” he quickly explains. “It doesn’t matter. You’ve got to talk some sense into him.”
Justin takes a step back. “You have SARS?”
“No!” Ted hisses. “I just needed to get out of the office. Brian is driving everyone crazy. He practically sleeps at the office. And he’s moody and weird and is totally micromanaging every account and--” Ted gives a sheepishly side glance, “--and, last night he--he actually thanked me.”
Alas, Justin’s worst fears have come true. The real Brian has spontaneously combusted. Justin puts down the dirty plates in his hand. “But what can I do?”
Ted is livid. “I don’t know! You’re the love of his love, aren’t you suppose to know how to stop the Brian Kinney hurricane?”
Justin thinks about this and then he only blinks.
- - -
As if having Ted on his case isn’t bad enough, it seems that all of Liberty Avenue has taken upon itself to report Brian’s activities to him. What part of broken up don’t they understand?
During the breakfast rush at the diner, Justin hears from Michael who has heard from Debbie who has heard from Melanie who has heard from Lindsay that Brian is looking to sell the Corvette.
“But Brian loves that car!” Emmett exclaims while munching on a piece of bacon stolen from someone else’s plate.
Ted sips his coffee. “Well, considering the love of his life has left him,” he says quietly and glances at Justin petulantly.
“Yeah,” Michael says, smirking, and turns to Justin. “Boyfriend replacement therapy.”
“You know, Sunshine,” Debbie says wisely, leaning over the counter with her hair flaming red against the stainless steel. “Maybe this time he’ll actually learn something.”
Suddenly Ted perks up. “Right,” he says hopefully. “Maybe you can break up again when the third quarter numbers come in?”
Justin rolls his eyes at his so-called friends and family. Seriously, it’s not like he’s breaking up with Brian for fun.
- - -
Brian wonders when he stopped correcting people when they refer to Justin as the love of his life.
- - -
“I really like the new direction your work’s been taking lately,” Lindsay comments, holding up a sketch in her hands. “Everything’s so vibrant-there’s something so fiercely desperate about them. It’s wonderful.”
Justin beams. “Thanks!”
Lindsay leaves through the new portfolio. “I especially like this piece here,” she points out. “The nostalgia. The longing.”
That’s when Justin stops grinning. “What?”
“It’s like recalling things you had once desired.”
Justin exhales loudly. “Not you too.”
She turns to look at him expectedly. “What are you talking about?”
“Brain!” Justin cries. “Who else? Everything’s always about--”
“Brian? Who’s talking about Brian?”
“You are!” Justin explains exasperatedly. “Not everything is about Brian, you know. Including my art.”
“I didn’t mean that,” Lindsay says in that soft, mollifying tone she takes on sometimes when she’s talking to Gus or Brian. “I was just commenting on the emotions evoked by this beautiful painting.”
Justin sighs.
“But you know,” Lindsay begins gently. “Brian misses you, even though he’d rather eat carbs after seven than admit it. And I know you miss him too, considering how you just reacted.”
Justin looks away and resists the urge to tear up the painting in Lindsay’s hands.
- - -
Justin does not miss Brian. (Except for a few minutes every morning, Justin allows himself to miss the tiny inexplicable loveliness that is waking up with Brian’s breath in his hair.)
- - -
As another October goes by in Pittsburgh, Justin decides that trying to ignore Brian is really counterproductive to his goals. Because the universe seems to be so painfully aware that it revolves around Brian.
“So how was he?” Justin asks with a wry smile that never quite reaches his eyes and takes Brian’s empty cup.
Brian returns the same lopsided grin that never quite reaches his eyes. “Spectacular,” he replies (even though there’s really no one) and gets up to leave.
Justin notices that Brian is wearing his custom-made Burberry trench that is expertly fitted in all the right places to give the perfect proportions. He suddenly remembers the clean lines of the loft, Italian furniture, and deep blue Egyptian cotton sheets.
“Later,” he says faintly and finds a heaviness building in his chest, as if the past few months have finally coalesced into a singular weight. It’s as though there has been a wild beast living beneath his skin, now raging to get out. Somehow the only way to placate it would be reaching out and rip off Brian’s perfect Burberry trench.
“Later,” Brian calls back from the door, not even looking back.
As the door closes with a muffled groan and click, Justin stares expressionlessly at the fifty dollar bill tucked in carelessly at the edge of Brian’s half eaten Pink Plate Special. The beast rages louder.
Justin decides breaking up with Brian is hard work.
- - -
Brian notices how all the colors get a tiny bit brighter whenever Justin is in the room.
- - -
On a particularly warm November morning, Justin is rudely woken up by a loud knock at the front door. He groans and waits for Daphne to get it. After five minutes, he remembers that Daphne has spent the night at her boyfriend’s. (Great, everyone’s getting laid except him. Ted is even dating someone. Ew.)
Groggy eyed and irritated, Justin opens the door. “Hello?”
“Hey!”
Justin blinks and then rubs his eyes. “Mel?”
“Sorry to wake you,” she says cheerily.
He squints at her. “Is everything okay?” Suddenly a hundred scenarios spin through his head, all of which includes someone in the hospital and Brian’s sarcastic grunt.
“Oh! Not like that! I’m sorry, everything’s fine,” Melanie quickly explains.
He lets out a breath he didn’t know he is holding. “That’s good,” he says and waits.
Melanie looks uneasily at the floor and then says quietly, “It’s Brian.”
Justin tilts his head, puzzled.
“He won’t leave us alone!” Melanie says wrathfully in a way that only female lawyers can get away with. “He’s always at our house, playing with Gus, staying for dinner. Lindsay’s been too brainwashed to say anything. Justin, you’ve got to help me.”
He groans.
- - -
For the next two weeks, Justin refuses to answer any phone calls or even knocks at the door. His popularity, it seems, is inversely proportional to the togetherness of his relationship with Brian.
- - -
Justin decides the universe is working against him when Emmett sits him down for a talk.
“You know, sweetie.” Emmett kidnaps Justin during one of his shifts at the diner and shoves him into a booth. “Maybe getting back together with Brian isn’t such a bad idea.”
Justin pinches himself to make sure he isn’t dreaming.
“I mean, I still think he’s a heartless, conceited asshole--excuse my French, dear--but he’s just a little bit less heartless and conceited and asshole-y when you are around--”
Justin is sure he’s on a bad episode of one of those reality TV prank shows.
“--poor Teddy, I think he’s really going to break something. And it’s not something you’d want to be broken,” Emmett giggles. “That is if his heart holds out. I think every time I see him, his blood pressure has risen five points. Oh, and have you seen Mel lately?”
Justin nods, not knowing what else to do.
“Poor thing is in hysterics. Apparently, Brian’s making a wreck of her home life. I don’t blame her. Imagine having to put up with Brian’s bullshit twenty-four seven?”
He wills himself to tone out Emmett’s words until finally, there’s silence. He straightens in his seat. Emmett is looking at him eagerly.
“Um,” Justin begins. “Yes?” A sudden, bone chilling fear settles into the bottom of his stomach. What did he agree to?
Emmett lets out a loud cheer and claps his hands readily. “Wonderful! I knew I could talk some sense into you. Teddy told me that you were hopeless but I told him! I told him, no one can resist my powers of persuasion.”
Justin smiles weakly.
“As my Aunt Lulu always used to say down in Hazlehurst, Mississippi,” Emmett singsongs happily, with glitter in his eyelashes. “You never know what you’ve got until it’s gone.”
“Really,” Justin answers hopelessly, giving into the madness. “I thought that was the Bible.”
- - -
November is a strange time in Pittsburgh. Brian still feels like August (warm, fierce, and blue); there are no recollections of time passing. Yet another summer is gone, now winter is touching down in all the lingering spaces.
Brian drinks his coffee at the diner, skims the business section of the newspaper, and never notices that Justin has started to wear a scarf (that particular old blue one, with long bold strips) and how Justin’s eyes are shockingly blue against it.
He bemoans the state of his dry skin and wonders if the lack of moisture would give him more wrinkles in the future.
When he leaves the diner, he stops after the door to put on his leather gloves. Brian looks up at the winter sky and thinks, for a moment, that the world’s on fire.
- - -
Rage layouts are due in the beginning of December. After working on the panels for practically three weeks straight, Justin has had enough of Brian superheroes. In fact, to prove to everyone (and himself) that Justin Taylor’s universe does not revolve around one Brian Kinney, Justin convinces Michael to get high together.
After two and a half joints, Justin can’t help but feel just a little bit dirty. It’s not because what they are doing is remarkably illegal but because, after all, Michael is Brian’s best friend and Brian’s stoner buddy. But the more he thinks about it, the more he delights in the present state of affairs. For that matter, he would give up his next Rage check to see Brian’s reaction-his best friend and ex-whatever smoking up together. The universe may choose to revolve around Brian, but Justin’s social life definitely does not. He lets out a lazy chuckle.
“What’s so funny?” Michael asks. His voice is muffled through the cushion against his cheek.
“Nothing,” Justin answers but can’t stop laughing.
Michael takes another hit and watches the smoke make swirls towards the ceiling. “Maybe you shouldn’t have anymore,” he suggests.
“I was just thinking,” Justin begins, unable to resist. “You know, like--what would Brian think? Of us that is, right now, getting high together.”
Michael reflects upon this seriously. “He would burst a major artery,” he agrees, nodding and laughing.
Justin snatches the burning joint from Michael’s hands. “Yeah, he’d even be more pissed off than that time we first started Rage,” he comments giddily, unable to suppress the memory.
Michael doesn’t reply for a long time.
- - -
When they are on their fourth joint, Michael rolls off Daphne’s ratty old coach and settles beside Justin.
“Do you think he’ll really be mad?” Michael asks.
“Who?”
“Brian.”
“Um, isn’t being irritated and pissed off his natural disposition?”
Michael swats Justin’s arm. “No, because we are doing this.”
“You can tell him to shove it up his ass because my world does not revolve around him,” Justin announces confidently. The edges of his vision are fuzzy; his skin tingles. “Michael, the universe does not revolve around Brian Kinney.”
“No, that’s not what I meant,” Michael says, annoyed, and makes a face.
“Then what?”
Michael starts to munch on a chocolate chip cookie which somewhere between the first and fourth joint is placed on the living room rug. “That we’re together,” he finally says. “And you’re not. Anymore.”
Justin squints. “What?”
“We’re friends now,” Michael explains slowly. “You and I, we’re friends. But you and Brian are not anything anymore.”
Justin sighs. “I guess.”
Michael is quiet again. “You should be friends with him.”
“Why?" A pause. "He doesn’t want me anymore.”
“No, he’ll always want you.”
Justin snorts.
“I’m serious!” Michael exclaims. “Half of Pittsburgh wants to be with Brian, Justin. But you are the only one he wants.”
“How come you’re so sure?’ Justin asks angrily. “How come I was in a fucking relationship with him and still can’t be sure?”
“That’s the point!” Michael replies with the same anger. “You, only you, were in a fucking relationship with fucking Brian Kinney.” He picks up another cookie. “Lindsay wanted to marry him, you know. Well, before she realized she liked pussy. But Brian didn’t want her anyways, not like that. And I--” Michael suddenly pauses.
Justin hears the unsaid words.
Michael sighs heavily. “The point is,” he says through a mouthful of cookie. “You’re the only one who can waltz in and out of Brian’s life like this and he’ll always take you back.”
Suddenly, Justin feels dizzy, as though the earth is spinning relentlessly beneath him. The universe realigns itself. It seems that it doesn’t revolve around Brian after all. Justin finds it harder and harder to breathe.
“I don’t remember why you broke up,” Michael suddenly says after he has finished his sixth cookie.
Justin ponders this, his head still reeling. “Shit,” he chuckles. “I don’t either.”
“Shit,” Michael says and joins Justin’s laughter.
A moment later, Michael drifts off to sleep. Justin stares at the ceiling (everything’s suddenly stunningly clear to him) and fingers the burnt out joint in his hand.
- - -
The next morning, Justin wakes up (still on the floor) to Michael stumbling about Daphne’s tiny living room. “Shit, shit, shit!” Michael mutters, picking up his bag and the Rage layout. “Ben’s going to kill me. Fuck, I got to go, Justin!”
As the door slams shut, Justin looks out the window to see a violent sky, but he’s the calmest he has been for months.
- - -
Brian opens the loft door and smells food. He sighs and throws down his jacket on the bar stool. “What the fuck are you doing here?” he asks without looking around. There is only one person who cooks at the loft.
Justin pokes his head around the sofa. “Hi, you’re home!” he exclaimed brightly as if this is the most natural thing in the world. A half eaten grilled cheese sandwich is lying on the coffee table.
“How was work?”
Not missing a beat, Brian repeats his question. “What. The. Fuck. Are. You. Doing. Here.”
Justin shrugs noncommittally.
“And how the hell did you get into the loft?” he asks and immediately regrets it. Justin has had a key to the loft ever since the first time they lived together and the key has never left his keychain since.
Justin picks up his sandwich and takes it to the garbage in the kitchen. “The security code’s still the same,” he explains quickly.
Brian massages the bridge of his nose.
“I’ve decided that you should take me back,” Justin says from the kitchen counter after a brief pause.
Brian raises an eyebrow. “Why should I do a thing like that?” he answers flatly.
Justin puts the dirty dish into the sink with a harsh thud and replies, louder, “Life keeps bringing me back to you. I’m sorry. I have no control over it.”
Brian considers this and tongues the inside of his cheek. “Is that so?”
Justin nods and smiles. (The room lights up.) “You’re stuck with me.”
- - -
Justin rests his head against Brian’s bare chest and listens to the steady beat. “The next time we break up,” Justin begins thoughtfully. “Can I still keep all my stuff here? I mean, it’s going to be a pain in the ass moving everything back again.”
Brian laughs, blowing cigarette smoke into Justin’s eyes. “Whatever your little heart desires” is the nonchalant reply.
Justin pulls the duvet higher and smiles against Brian’s cool skin. (He’s sure now, finally.)
“Oh, and Brian,” Justin suddenly says, serious and firm. “Don’t sell the Corvette.”
Brian moves as to see Justin’s face. He contemplates this request and the color of Justin’s eyes. He considers the purring engine sounds and wonders about the hollow of Justin’s collarbone and the sagging of the mattress against Justin’s weight. Brian thinks about the Corvette with its black leather seats and the texture of Justin’s hair and remembers how gold looks like bronze under dim bedroom lights.
“I promise,” he says softly against the warmth of Justin’s throat.
Written By: corposant
Timeline: season 4-ish
Rating: PG-13
Summary:"It’s the middle of a remarkably sweltering August when Justin and Brian break up for the fifth time."
Author's Notes: And because Justin and Michael needs to get high together. Don't take this too seriously. Thank you besame_bj for being a wonderful beta. Also inspired by a song, by the same name, from Au Revoir Simone. And if you like indie synth pop, you can also hear it here.
Inspired By Icon:
It’s the middle of a remarkably sweltering August when Justin and Brian break up for the fifth time. It results from a mature discussion that went something like this:
“Fuck you, I’m leaving!” Justin yells across the loft, throwing his arms in the air.
“Great, fuck you too! Get out!” Brain screams back, throwing open the door.
(Upon retrospection, it’s really one of his lamest comebacks.)
This is followed by something roughly resembling a nuclear fall out. Because as soon as Justin steps out the door, the past four years (or one year, depending on who you are talking to)
together miraculously cease to exist. Brian decides to go back to being the biggest jerk on the East Coast and Justin starts to pretend that his world did not revolve around Brian.
So, Justin stops going to the loft and stops bringing Brian his orders at the diner. Brian stops leaving Justin terse voicemail on how the whole point of having a cell phone is so that Justin’s ass can be at his beck and call. Brian even stops coming home at 3 AM (well, actually it only happens once or twice; Brian only wants to see what it’s like). And they ignore (eye fuck) each other in the backroom of Babylon when they think no one is looking.
- - -
The third time Brian and Justin arrive at the diner separately, Debbie is vaguely worried. But the third time Brian and Justin refuse to sit in the same booth, Jennifer starts to panic. Well, maybe just a little.
“So,” Jennifer starts uncomfortably after the fourth time, “You’re really broken up this time?” Justin nods resolutely, looking everywhere but his mother’s eyes.
Somewhere, on the other side of the diner, Debbie whacks Brian across the head and roars, “Fix this, you asshole!”
- - -
Michael suddenly sees more of Brian in a week than he has in the past two months combined.
Ted is one step closer to a severe myocardial infarction with every extra hour Brian puts in at Kinnetik.
Melanie is pissed off because out of the blue, Brian decides to be an attentive father.
Lindsay stops calling because Brian keeps hanging up on her whenever she talks about the gallery.
Emmett notices that all the hot new tricks in town have been somehow less available as of late.
By the end of the second week, Ben officially labels it as the greatest separation since the dissolution of the USSR.
- - -
Daphne’s apartment doesn’t have air conditioning. By the end of August, the weather only gets hotter.
For two weeks, Justin sits in the middle of Daphne’s ratty couch, sweating buckets and absurdly bored.
The air in Daphne’s small two-bedroom apartment is slow and heavy, like the musty air of a bathhouse.
Which is a dreadful thing. Because whenever Justin thinks about bathhouses, Justin thinks about Brian. Which is a severe understatement. Because whenever Justin thinks, he is thinking about Brian.
So for two weeks, Justin sits, sweating, in the middle of Daphne’s ratty couch, a little turned on, and pines for Brian. Until finally, Daphne snaps.
“You are making me sick!” she practically screams. She is flapping her arms in the air like some kind of bird, Justin thinks dully. “You’re officially pathetic! Go to Babylon! Fuck someone! For the love of cocks, please just let me have a few hours to myself!”
With that she shoves Justin out the door.
As Justin makes his way down the stairs from the humid apartment into the even more humid night air, he recalls fondly the climate controlled loft. He quickly leaves himself a mental note to never again break up with Brian in the middle of the summer. Really, his hair can’t deal with all this fucking moisture.
- - -
In the morning, Justin wakes in someone else’s shabby apartment and regrets another night wasted on someone less than decent in bed. As he pulls on his t-shirt, Justin mourns the state of his lackluster (sex) life.
- - -
Michael is annoyed. Brian is his best friend and all. He obviously loves him and is truly sorry that he and Justin broke up (yet again), but damn it, enough is enough. Michael is putting his foot down.
“Brian, I’m not going to Babylon tonight,” Michael says firmly. “And you can’t have dinner with me and Ben and Hunter anymore.” There, the foot is down.
Brian raises an eyebrow.
“I mean, you are always welcomed on Fridays and some weekends,” Michael quickly amends. “And other occasional weekdays.”
Ben looks at him sympathetically with an unrecognizable vegetarian concoction in hand. “I’m really sorry about Justin,” Ben tells him.
Brian glares back. He wouldn’t even force feed Theodore Ben’s cooking. Did they actually think he wanted to stay for dinner? And, for the nth time, what they had is an unconventional, undefined relationship (and he uses that word loosely) and it’s not a break up because you don’t break up from an unconventional, undefined relationship. Honestly.
There’s a grunt from the other side of the apartment.
“I’m not sorry,” Hunter cuts in enthusiastically.
“However, I am always free for nights out at Babylon. Among other things,” he adds and winks flirtatiously.
Brian sighs sorrowfully and heads for the door. Everyone’s useless.
- - -
By mid-September, Justin decides that he rather enjoys being single.
He stays out as late as the mood strikes him and even keeps as many phone numbers as he wants. On weekends, he drink himself into oblivion and back without anyone to answer to. Yep. This is the life.
- - -
The trouble really starts when Ted hunts Justin down one morning at the diner. It’s just early October and it’s still warm outside. Which is why it is strange that Ted shows up in a long black coat and sunglasses and a red baseball hat. Justin wonders if Brian finally drove him mad.
“You’ve got to talk to him,” Ted whispers feverishly as soon as he sees Justin.
“Who?”
“Brian! Who else?”
“Why do I want to talk to Brian? And what are you wearing?”
Ted immediately lowers his baseball hat. “I have SARS and can’t go to work because I’m highly contagious,” he quickly explains. “It doesn’t matter. You’ve got to talk some sense into him.”
Justin takes a step back. “You have SARS?”
“No!” Ted hisses. “I just needed to get out of the office. Brian is driving everyone crazy. He practically sleeps at the office. And he’s moody and weird and is totally micromanaging every account and--” Ted gives a sheepishly side glance, “--and, last night he--he actually thanked me.”
Alas, Justin’s worst fears have come true. The real Brian has spontaneously combusted. Justin puts down the dirty plates in his hand. “But what can I do?”
Ted is livid. “I don’t know! You’re the love of his love, aren’t you suppose to know how to stop the Brian Kinney hurricane?”
Justin thinks about this and then he only blinks.
- - -
As if having Ted on his case isn’t bad enough, it seems that all of Liberty Avenue has taken upon itself to report Brian’s activities to him. What part of broken up don’t they understand?
During the breakfast rush at the diner, Justin hears from Michael who has heard from Debbie who has heard from Melanie who has heard from Lindsay that Brian is looking to sell the Corvette.
“But Brian loves that car!” Emmett exclaims while munching on a piece of bacon stolen from someone else’s plate.
Ted sips his coffee. “Well, considering the love of his life has left him,” he says quietly and glances at Justin petulantly.
“Yeah,” Michael says, smirking, and turns to Justin. “Boyfriend replacement therapy.”
“You know, Sunshine,” Debbie says wisely, leaning over the counter with her hair flaming red against the stainless steel. “Maybe this time he’ll actually learn something.”
Suddenly Ted perks up. “Right,” he says hopefully. “Maybe you can break up again when the third quarter numbers come in?”
Justin rolls his eyes at his so-called friends and family. Seriously, it’s not like he’s breaking up with Brian for fun.
- - -
Brian wonders when he stopped correcting people when they refer to Justin as the love of his life.
- - -
“I really like the new direction your work’s been taking lately,” Lindsay comments, holding up a sketch in her hands. “Everything’s so vibrant-there’s something so fiercely desperate about them. It’s wonderful.”
Justin beams. “Thanks!”
Lindsay leaves through the new portfolio. “I especially like this piece here,” she points out. “The nostalgia. The longing.”
That’s when Justin stops grinning. “What?”
“It’s like recalling things you had once desired.”
Justin exhales loudly. “Not you too.”
She turns to look at him expectedly. “What are you talking about?”
“Brain!” Justin cries. “Who else? Everything’s always about--”
“Brian? Who’s talking about Brian?”
“You are!” Justin explains exasperatedly. “Not everything is about Brian, you know. Including my art.”
“I didn’t mean that,” Lindsay says in that soft, mollifying tone she takes on sometimes when she’s talking to Gus or Brian. “I was just commenting on the emotions evoked by this beautiful painting.”
Justin sighs.
“But you know,” Lindsay begins gently. “Brian misses you, even though he’d rather eat carbs after seven than admit it. And I know you miss him too, considering how you just reacted.”
Justin looks away and resists the urge to tear up the painting in Lindsay’s hands.
- - -
Justin does not miss Brian. (Except for a few minutes every morning, Justin allows himself to miss the tiny inexplicable loveliness that is waking up with Brian’s breath in his hair.)
- - -
As another October goes by in Pittsburgh, Justin decides that trying to ignore Brian is really counterproductive to his goals. Because the universe seems to be so painfully aware that it revolves around Brian.
“So how was he?” Justin asks with a wry smile that never quite reaches his eyes and takes Brian’s empty cup.
Brian returns the same lopsided grin that never quite reaches his eyes. “Spectacular,” he replies (even though there’s really no one) and gets up to leave.
Justin notices that Brian is wearing his custom-made Burberry trench that is expertly fitted in all the right places to give the perfect proportions. He suddenly remembers the clean lines of the loft, Italian furniture, and deep blue Egyptian cotton sheets.
“Later,” he says faintly and finds a heaviness building in his chest, as if the past few months have finally coalesced into a singular weight. It’s as though there has been a wild beast living beneath his skin, now raging to get out. Somehow the only way to placate it would be reaching out and rip off Brian’s perfect Burberry trench.
“Later,” Brian calls back from the door, not even looking back.
As the door closes with a muffled groan and click, Justin stares expressionlessly at the fifty dollar bill tucked in carelessly at the edge of Brian’s half eaten Pink Plate Special. The beast rages louder.
Justin decides breaking up with Brian is hard work.
- - -
Brian notices how all the colors get a tiny bit brighter whenever Justin is in the room.
- - -
On a particularly warm November morning, Justin is rudely woken up by a loud knock at the front door. He groans and waits for Daphne to get it. After five minutes, he remembers that Daphne has spent the night at her boyfriend’s. (Great, everyone’s getting laid except him. Ted is even dating someone. Ew.)
Groggy eyed and irritated, Justin opens the door. “Hello?”
“Hey!”
Justin blinks and then rubs his eyes. “Mel?”
“Sorry to wake you,” she says cheerily.
He squints at her. “Is everything okay?” Suddenly a hundred scenarios spin through his head, all of which includes someone in the hospital and Brian’s sarcastic grunt.
“Oh! Not like that! I’m sorry, everything’s fine,” Melanie quickly explains.
He lets out a breath he didn’t know he is holding. “That’s good,” he says and waits.
Melanie looks uneasily at the floor and then says quietly, “It’s Brian.”
Justin tilts his head, puzzled.
“He won’t leave us alone!” Melanie says wrathfully in a way that only female lawyers can get away with. “He’s always at our house, playing with Gus, staying for dinner. Lindsay’s been too brainwashed to say anything. Justin, you’ve got to help me.”
He groans.
- - -
For the next two weeks, Justin refuses to answer any phone calls or even knocks at the door. His popularity, it seems, is inversely proportional to the togetherness of his relationship with Brian.
- - -
Justin decides the universe is working against him when Emmett sits him down for a talk.
“You know, sweetie.” Emmett kidnaps Justin during one of his shifts at the diner and shoves him into a booth. “Maybe getting back together with Brian isn’t such a bad idea.”
Justin pinches himself to make sure he isn’t dreaming.
“I mean, I still think he’s a heartless, conceited asshole--excuse my French, dear--but he’s just a little bit less heartless and conceited and asshole-y when you are around--”
Justin is sure he’s on a bad episode of one of those reality TV prank shows.
“--poor Teddy, I think he’s really going to break something. And it’s not something you’d want to be broken,” Emmett giggles. “That is if his heart holds out. I think every time I see him, his blood pressure has risen five points. Oh, and have you seen Mel lately?”
Justin nods, not knowing what else to do.
“Poor thing is in hysterics. Apparently, Brian’s making a wreck of her home life. I don’t blame her. Imagine having to put up with Brian’s bullshit twenty-four seven?”
He wills himself to tone out Emmett’s words until finally, there’s silence. He straightens in his seat. Emmett is looking at him eagerly.
“Um,” Justin begins. “Yes?” A sudden, bone chilling fear settles into the bottom of his stomach. What did he agree to?
Emmett lets out a loud cheer and claps his hands readily. “Wonderful! I knew I could talk some sense into you. Teddy told me that you were hopeless but I told him! I told him, no one can resist my powers of persuasion.”
Justin smiles weakly.
“As my Aunt Lulu always used to say down in Hazlehurst, Mississippi,” Emmett singsongs happily, with glitter in his eyelashes. “You never know what you’ve got until it’s gone.”
“Really,” Justin answers hopelessly, giving into the madness. “I thought that was the Bible.”
- - -
November is a strange time in Pittsburgh. Brian still feels like August (warm, fierce, and blue); there are no recollections of time passing. Yet another summer is gone, now winter is touching down in all the lingering spaces.
Brian drinks his coffee at the diner, skims the business section of the newspaper, and never notices that Justin has started to wear a scarf (that particular old blue one, with long bold strips) and how Justin’s eyes are shockingly blue against it.
He bemoans the state of his dry skin and wonders if the lack of moisture would give him more wrinkles in the future.
When he leaves the diner, he stops after the door to put on his leather gloves. Brian looks up at the winter sky and thinks, for a moment, that the world’s on fire.
- - -
Rage layouts are due in the beginning of December. After working on the panels for practically three weeks straight, Justin has had enough of Brian superheroes. In fact, to prove to everyone (and himself) that Justin Taylor’s universe does not revolve around one Brian Kinney, Justin convinces Michael to get high together.
After two and a half joints, Justin can’t help but feel just a little bit dirty. It’s not because what they are doing is remarkably illegal but because, after all, Michael is Brian’s best friend and Brian’s stoner buddy. But the more he thinks about it, the more he delights in the present state of affairs. For that matter, he would give up his next Rage check to see Brian’s reaction-his best friend and ex-whatever smoking up together. The universe may choose to revolve around Brian, but Justin’s social life definitely does not. He lets out a lazy chuckle.
“What’s so funny?” Michael asks. His voice is muffled through the cushion against his cheek.
“Nothing,” Justin answers but can’t stop laughing.
Michael takes another hit and watches the smoke make swirls towards the ceiling. “Maybe you shouldn’t have anymore,” he suggests.
“I was just thinking,” Justin begins, unable to resist. “You know, like--what would Brian think? Of us that is, right now, getting high together.”
Michael reflects upon this seriously. “He would burst a major artery,” he agrees, nodding and laughing.
Justin snatches the burning joint from Michael’s hands. “Yeah, he’d even be more pissed off than that time we first started Rage,” he comments giddily, unable to suppress the memory.
Michael doesn’t reply for a long time.
- - -
When they are on their fourth joint, Michael rolls off Daphne’s ratty old coach and settles beside Justin.
“Do you think he’ll really be mad?” Michael asks.
“Who?”
“Brian.”
“Um, isn’t being irritated and pissed off his natural disposition?”
Michael swats Justin’s arm. “No, because we are doing this.”
“You can tell him to shove it up his ass because my world does not revolve around him,” Justin announces confidently. The edges of his vision are fuzzy; his skin tingles. “Michael, the universe does not revolve around Brian Kinney.”
“No, that’s not what I meant,” Michael says, annoyed, and makes a face.
“Then what?”
Michael starts to munch on a chocolate chip cookie which somewhere between the first and fourth joint is placed on the living room rug. “That we’re together,” he finally says. “And you’re not. Anymore.”
Justin squints. “What?”
“We’re friends now,” Michael explains slowly. “You and I, we’re friends. But you and Brian are not anything anymore.”
Justin sighs. “I guess.”
Michael is quiet again. “You should be friends with him.”
“Why?" A pause. "He doesn’t want me anymore.”
“No, he’ll always want you.”
Justin snorts.
“I’m serious!” Michael exclaims. “Half of Pittsburgh wants to be with Brian, Justin. But you are the only one he wants.”
“How come you’re so sure?’ Justin asks angrily. “How come I was in a fucking relationship with him and still can’t be sure?”
“That’s the point!” Michael replies with the same anger. “You, only you, were in a fucking relationship with fucking Brian Kinney.” He picks up another cookie. “Lindsay wanted to marry him, you know. Well, before she realized she liked pussy. But Brian didn’t want her anyways, not like that. And I--” Michael suddenly pauses.
Justin hears the unsaid words.
Michael sighs heavily. “The point is,” he says through a mouthful of cookie. “You’re the only one who can waltz in and out of Brian’s life like this and he’ll always take you back.”
Suddenly, Justin feels dizzy, as though the earth is spinning relentlessly beneath him. The universe realigns itself. It seems that it doesn’t revolve around Brian after all. Justin finds it harder and harder to breathe.
“I don’t remember why you broke up,” Michael suddenly says after he has finished his sixth cookie.
Justin ponders this, his head still reeling. “Shit,” he chuckles. “I don’t either.”
“Shit,” Michael says and joins Justin’s laughter.
A moment later, Michael drifts off to sleep. Justin stares at the ceiling (everything’s suddenly stunningly clear to him) and fingers the burnt out joint in his hand.
- - -
The next morning, Justin wakes up (still on the floor) to Michael stumbling about Daphne’s tiny living room. “Shit, shit, shit!” Michael mutters, picking up his bag and the Rage layout. “Ben’s going to kill me. Fuck, I got to go, Justin!”
As the door slams shut, Justin looks out the window to see a violent sky, but he’s the calmest he has been for months.
- - -
Brian opens the loft door and smells food. He sighs and throws down his jacket on the bar stool. “What the fuck are you doing here?” he asks without looking around. There is only one person who cooks at the loft.
Justin pokes his head around the sofa. “Hi, you’re home!” he exclaimed brightly as if this is the most natural thing in the world. A half eaten grilled cheese sandwich is lying on the coffee table.
“How was work?”
Not missing a beat, Brian repeats his question. “What. The. Fuck. Are. You. Doing. Here.”
Justin shrugs noncommittally.
“And how the hell did you get into the loft?” he asks and immediately regrets it. Justin has had a key to the loft ever since the first time they lived together and the key has never left his keychain since.
Justin picks up his sandwich and takes it to the garbage in the kitchen. “The security code’s still the same,” he explains quickly.
Brian massages the bridge of his nose.
“I’ve decided that you should take me back,” Justin says from the kitchen counter after a brief pause.
Brian raises an eyebrow. “Why should I do a thing like that?” he answers flatly.
Justin puts the dirty dish into the sink with a harsh thud and replies, louder, “Life keeps bringing me back to you. I’m sorry. I have no control over it.”
Brian considers this and tongues the inside of his cheek. “Is that so?”
Justin nods and smiles. (The room lights up.) “You’re stuck with me.”
- - -
Justin rests his head against Brian’s bare chest and listens to the steady beat. “The next time we break up,” Justin begins thoughtfully. “Can I still keep all my stuff here? I mean, it’s going to be a pain in the ass moving everything back again.”
Brian laughs, blowing cigarette smoke into Justin’s eyes. “Whatever your little heart desires” is the nonchalant reply.
Justin pulls the duvet higher and smiles against Brian’s cool skin. (He’s sure now, finally.)
“Oh, and Brian,” Justin suddenly says, serious and firm. “Don’t sell the Corvette.”
Brian moves as to see Justin’s face. He contemplates this request and the color of Justin’s eyes. He considers the purring engine sounds and wonders about the hollow of Justin’s collarbone and the sagging of the mattress against Justin’s weight. Brian thinks about the Corvette with its black leather seats and the texture of Justin’s hair and remembers how gold looks like bronze under dim bedroom lights.
“I promise,” he says softly against the warmth of Justin’s throat.